The Francone Princes of Ripabottoni in the Contado di Molise

A new and unique study of the Neapolitan nobility and Molise has been published by researcher Gabriella Paduano and parish priest Don Gabriele Tamilia: I Principi Francone nel Contado di Molise, with a preface by the Bishop of Trivento Mons. Claudio Palumbo and Dr. Francesca Carnevale of the University of Molise. This book, rich in fresh research and analysis offers an engaging new look at the intersection of the grand Southern nobility, eighteenth century art patronage, local genius and creativity and education in the Molise region, and the centuries long rapport not only between the princely Francone family which greatly loved the land of Ripabottoni, but also the complex and cyclical relationship between the Molisan province and the capital Naples. Scholars, specialists and laymen alike will enjoy this well documented work, with thorough bibliographical notes and many original photographs and copies of documents.

Il principe Paolo Francone

Paduano and Tamilia take the reader deep into the origins of this vanishing world and the men and women of the Kingdom of Naples and later the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, who left a lasting mark in Italian history. Since the unification of Italy, the ancient Contado di Molise has unfortunately been relegated to the status of a little known rural region, picturesque and full of millennia of antiquities, but which suffered from depopulation and little investment. Indeed the region was quickly placed into the Abruzzo region and was later made its own region in 1963. Ironically, the region has become appreciated mainly by foreign tourists and some returning emigrants and expats who have begun to reinvest in it. Within this largely unknown region, features the Terra di Ripa, the “Land of Ripa," which has become even less known to outsiders. Equally ironic, given the small territory has produced per capita more numerous notable people than larger areas. It has produced not only members of one of the greatest noble families in Italy, but also great scholars, artists, poets, and doctors such as Cav. Pietro Ramaglia, one of the court physicians to King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies. Its artists and artisans were frequently in demand in the city of Naples to decorate the great townhouses and villas of prominent Neapolitans. Its merchants and laborers built great fortunes in the Americas.

Cardinale Tommaso Ruffo

Ripabottoni, whose name has changed over the centuries (in former times it was variously referred to as “Ripa Gottorum,” “Ripalibottuni,” and “Ripabrettone” 1), often simply referred to as “Ripa,” is a small town in the modern province of Campobasso, Molise. Ripa was for millennia a commercial center and crossroads of transhumance and numerous ancient fairs such as the horse-trading fair. The town and surrounding country fiefdom passed to the Francone family, who so loved it and invested in it and its people, renamed it Ripafrancone and obtained royal approval to elevate it from a marquisate to a principality and to have their predicate title changed to “Princes of Ripafrancone.” This was no mere act of vanity. It solidified the noble family’s dedication to the well-being of the town, fostering charity, patronage and opportunity for the area. The fiefdom previously belonged to the Castropignano, Avalerio, di Capua, Carafa and Acquaviva families, who over the centuries fortified the area and curated its industries, including grain trading, horse trading, silk works and several private schools and school masters.

Ritratto di mons. G.A. Tria,
Vescovo di Larino

The Francone are one of the oldest families of the Neapolitan nobility and were members of the Seggio di Montagna in Naples, traditionally the Seggio of the provincial lords (the noble Seggi being the ancient Parliament of the Kingdom). Indeed, the Seggio was formerly known as the Seat of Francone because it convened in their palace. The roots of the Francone are lost in time, and one genealogy ascribes their descent from a Gaulish king around the year 500. In any case they were clearly prominent consistently since the 1300s and have intermarried with the most prominent families in the Kingdom of Naples and some from abroad. In the 1400s Oliviero Francone, the Baron of Taurisano, was one of King Ladislao of Durazzo’s generals and his sister Andronica was the wife of Skanderbeg. Gian Giacomo Dell’Acaya, the Engineer General of the Kingdom under Emperor Charles V was a Francone via his mother Maria Francone. 

Francesco Solimena, “San Michele Arcangelo”,
Chiesa di S. Maria Assunta, Ripabottoni (Cb)

The Francone held feudal possessions in Salcito, Torella del Sannio and Pietracupa as well as Ripa and maintained a palace in Naples. The Francone were loyal to the cadet branch of the House of Anjou and their ancestors are well documented since the 1300s.  As other great feudal families in the Molise region fell into decline, others such as the Francone expanded and acquired more feudal lands. The branch of the Francone which were affirmed barons in the Terra d’Otranto, settled in Molise in the 1600s and dominated Ripa. Francesco Francone sought to reside mostly in Salcito and establish a baronial court life focused in Molise rather than Naples. Francesco later amplified the ancient baronial castle of Ripa into a modernized palace which became the princely seat of the family in the Molise countryside. His first born son Don Paolo Francone became his heir and the Prince of Ripa in 1742 and resided there with his wife Ippolita Ruffo di Bagnara e Castelcicala, of the famous noble Calabrian family which produced two well-known cardinals and which played a major role in the Kingdom for generations. Four of their ten children were born in Ripa. Tommaso Maria Francone became Bishop of Umbriatico and Archbishop of Manfredonia, and his son Giuseppe Antonio Francone became Minister of the Order of Malta. Gennaro Clemente Francone served as bishop in Cosenza, Gaeta and Troja.

Mons. Gennaro Clemente Francone,
Arcivescovo, prima di Cosenza,
poi di Gaeta, infine di Troia

Paolo Francone was known to be a free-spirited young man with a taste for luxury, but he was a gifted intellectual who went on to pursue poetry, theology and philosophy and charitable and entrepreneurial work. He published his own lyrical poetry and translated Descartes’s works from French. He personally frequented the philosopher Giambattista Vico and Saint Alfonso Maria de’ Liguori. He also oversaw archeological digs in Ripa and environs.

Prince Paolo and Princess Ippolita had a particular devotion to Saint Michael and sponsored paintings of the Saint and a chapel and hermitage dedicated to Saint Michael Archangel outside the town of Ripa (devotion to Saint Michael has deep roots in the Molise and overlapping Capitanata region of Puglia). The also build a chapel to Saint James. With Monsignor Tria they also established a small monastery of nuns in Ripa. The relic of Saint Rocco, co-patron of Ripa, in the main Church of Santa Maria Assunta, was likewise donated by Prince Paolo. Don Giacomo Francone, the titular Bishop of Sidon (Lebanon), who resided in the Palazzo Francone in Ripa authenticated the relics of Saint Faustus, Saint Venerandus and Saint Modestus which are all contained in the Church built by Prince Paolo.

Mons. Tommaso Francone,
dipinto conservato nel Museo
Diocesano di Manfredonia (Fg)

Paduano and Tamilia take the reader back in time through an examination of Prince Paolo Francone, one of the greatest exponents of the family. A published poet and devout Catholic, Prince Paolo and his wife Ippolita Ruffo di Bagnara e Castelcicala built the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, which was designed by his friend Ferdinando Sanfelice, also a member of the old Neapolitan-Molisan nobility. Prince Paolo and Sanfelice were also friends with Mons. Giovanni Andrea Tria, who authored the noted work Memorie storiche civili, ed ecclesiastiche della Città e Diocesi di Larino published in Rome in 1754. The Prince brought native Ripese artist Paolo Gamba into contact with the famed studio of the great Solimena, and Gamba lovingly decorated the new Church in Ripa. In fact, Don Paolo and his friend Ferdinando Sanfelice studied painting under Francesco Solimena when they were boys.

Sadly after centuries of glory, the Francone family became extinct after Giovanni Francone, the last Prince died, and survived indirectly in its last heirs, the Caracciolo di Torchiarolo family as the estates and titles passed to his nephew, the son of his sister Maria Imara. With the advent of modernity and evolving economic and political pressures upon the old nobility, the property and estates in Ripa were put up for auction in 1844 on the eve of Italian unification. Within a few decades much of the real estate was purchased by emergent bourgeois families, including the ancient baronial palace itself in Ripa. In the new environment patronage of the arts and schools ceased and courtly life and commerce disappeared, relegating the region to rural obscurity and increasing poverty. The two chapels built by the Francone were destroyed, and as occurred in many places, the territory witnessed armed clashes between royalists and Garibaldi supporters during the Piedmontese occupation, and the first mass emigration to large cities as well as to foreign countries began.

Corpo di San Crescenzo, chiesa Santa Maria Assunta, Ripabottoni (Cb)

This is truly an unicum in studies which offer a window into the true history of the Molise region and its rapport with the greater world. Making this work yet more compelling is the fact that is the product of thousands of hours of research conducted in person by Paduano and Tamilia not only in Ripabottoni, but also in the state and diocesan archives in Larino, Campobasso and Naples, at their own expense without any commission or sponsorship to do so. It is an act of love for their native land and the culture and faith that have sustained it for centuries. This dynamic team has presented their work in Ripabottoni on July 17, 2021 in the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, fittingly given the important works created by Paolo Gamba and other native artists under the patronage of the Francone, was to present the book in the Maschio Angioino in Naples in January 2022, but had to postpone due to pandemic conditions. The two are looking forward holding such a ceremony later in 2022. This work is an invitation to revisit and rediscover a heritage and legacy which was suppressed and obfuscated for such a long time.

About the Authors:

Gabriella Paduano was born in Molise in Termoli (CB) in 1976, after graduating high school she earned a degree in Modern Letters with a major in art history at the Università G. D’ Annunzio di Chieti. The subject of her degree thesis was  La pittura del 500 nel Molise [“Sixteenth Century painting in Molise”], her adviser was the well-known art historian Prof. Daniele Benati.

She is a specialist in the management of cultural heritage, through a masters degree, of the European Union and Molise Region.

She has worked for a communications firm with various responsibilities, and was a journalist at the  Il Tempo newspaper, and as a museum operator at the Museo del Quadrilatero in San Salvo, the Museo delle Genti di Abruzzo, the Museo di Arte Contemporanea Macte in Termoli.

An expert on local history and the art of her own region, she was also a guide for artistic itineraries in Molise and Abruzzo, she also has organized cultural events, such as the Gaeta sea fair I Sanniti e il mare [“The Samnites and the Sea”] nel 2016 and San Rocco in Arte [“Saint Rocco in Art”] in Ripabottoni in 2021. She has also participated in dialect poetry contests, having won first place. 

She currently teaches Italian language and literature.

In 2021 she published with Don Gabriele Tamilia the history book I Principi Francone nel Contado di Molise, Campobasso, Palladino Editore.

She is preparing with Don Gabriele Tamila, the publication of a book on a key figure in the history of Italian medicine, Cav. Dr Pietro Ramaglia  (Ripabottoni 1802-Napoli 1875), a doctor at the Bourbon court, clinician at the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Naples, and founder of topographic anatomy.

She is also organizing a museum at the Parish of  Santa Maria Assunta in Ripabottoni and a photographic exhibit in the Cappuccilli palace of Ripabottoni.

Don Gabriele Tamilia was born in Ripabottoni (Campobasso) 10 February 1943, and was ordained a priest in the Church of S. Maria Assunta in Ripabottoni 3 August 1968 by Archbishop Loris Capovilla, Secretary of Pope John XXIII. 

He is pastor of the parishes of Provvidenti, Casacalenda, Morrone del Sannio and Ripabottoni; rector of the diocesan Santuario della Madonna della Difesa in Casacalenda; and regional assistant for Abruzzo and Molise of Azione Cattolica and of the Professori Cattolici del Molise. 

He teaches history, philosophy, psychology and pedagogy, Italian, Latin, and geography in the state high schools. He is Professor of Philosophy and Theology in the Istituto di Scienze Religiose of the Dioceses of Termoli-Larino and of Campobasso; and Professor of Theology in the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore “Agostino Gemelli.” 

Fr. Tamilia is also the founder and director of the bulletin “L’Informatore Parrocchiale;” founder, president and editorial director of the television broadcast which serves Molise and part of Abruzzo; and freelance journalist of the Ordine Nazionale dei Giornalisti del Molise.

His religious oriented hobbies are: founder and director of a folkloristic group, of a polyphonic choir with a small orchestra, author and director of theater plays.

~ By Cav. Charles Sant’Elia

Notes:

1 Several other variations exist as well, and much has been written about the descriptive designations added to “Ripa”. It appears to have been first mentioned in the famous Norman catalogue of territories and other documents from the 1100s. The area has yielded Greek and Roman artifacts and was continuously inhabited for millennia.

Essential Bibliography/Further Reading

Gabriella Paduano and Gabriele Tamilia, I Principi Francone nel Contado di Molise, Ripalimosani, Editrice Lampo, 2021